Sleep

Baby just isn't sleeping enough and is nearly impossible to get to sleep! Night time she will sleep a stretch of 6,7 or occasionally 8 hours. So far so good.

However some days this can be it! She's terrible at napping. She might get half an hour late in the morning and maybe another hour late afternoon. It's very rare that she'll sleep longer than that. If I go out, she might sleep more often in the car but only short snatches here and there (5-10 minutes).

In the evening she sometimes falls asleep whilst I feed her, but by the time I've carried her to bed, she's awake again. And I mean wide awake! Last night I fed her lying down, after she just lay there kicking and waving her arms about, smiling and gurgling for over an hour! This was around midnight, having with from her one hour nap at 7pm. She eventually went to sleep about 1.30am. its the same every night. I spend hour after hour getting more frustrated and exhausted as it gets later and later!

Today she woke about 7.30am. she fed, got changed, we played with her, fed some more and she fell asleep... For 30 seconds. Play a bit more, put her in chair and she kicked about gurgling for a good while. She's finally fallen asleep after a feed at 12.30. 5 hours after she woke up!

My husband says not to stress about getting her to nap. If she's tired, she'll sleep. I said she could go all day if I didn't help her settle! He's not concerned that she only gets 8-10 hours max per 24 hours.

I mentioned my concerns to health visitor at 8 week appointment and she said some babies are more alert than others.

Please no-one say babies shouldn't be awake more than an hour. Or to put baby down for a nap after an hour. That just doesn't happen. We take walks in pram, she goes in sling, I rock her, use white noise, during all of which she stares up at me like I'm insane thinking she'll sleep!

I feel like my whole day is trying to get baby to sleep and to keep her asleep. Thinking if getting health visitor to visit again as I'm out of ideas!

I agree my lo is a bit like this he can sometimes go most of the day without napping although he is tired. He falls asleep on me but usually wakes up when I put him down. I've tried loads of things, as long as I can get him down at night I'm goin to stress about it less. They r all diff and some just don't want to conform to the 90 mins awake routine. If ur baby is happy awake then just going with that

This sounds quite normal to me, my little girl only has an hour sleep throughout the day, 30 minutes in the morning and another 30 in the afternoon. The only thing I can suggest about getting her to sleep earlier is to try a routine of a bath and feed and then put her down with white noise on and see if she will settle herself. I found if I fed my little girl downstairs she wouldn't sleep because there is too much going on but if I went upstairs and fed her in the dark and then left her in the cot with white noise on then she will go to sleep. You've probably tried all this but that's the only advice I have.xxx

Everything I've read or been told has been that baby needs to nap 2-3 times a day for a total of 5-6 hours. When I've posted on here before about it, there's always people who say baby is overtired and to put her down after an hour! Makes me so stressed that it's hampering her development!

She's happy most of the day. She screams a bit in the evening sometimes but she cheers up after she calms down enough to feed.

During the day she's normally happy.

Amybaby27, if I take her up earlier I end up feeding and holding her in a dimly lit room on my own for hours. Since this is the only time OH (other half) is home, it's too lonely for me!

Mine was the same but now doesn't sleep day or night :/ last night she did 40min sleep, 40min awake from 9.30-6.30, so a total of around 4.5hrs sleep, then has had one half hour nap this morning, and has just gone back to sleep.

I'm certain overtiredness is the problem for us but I'm doing everything I can to get her to nap more, nothing has worked so far, we went on an hour long walk in the sling and she didn't sleep! Although did just manage to get her to go to sleep in her crib for the first time ever instead of being fed or driven to sleep so maybe things will improve one day...

My lo was the same, but was always unhappy in the evening, unless we held him and walked around with him. He now sleeps about 2 hours in the afternoon as found the knack for him ......a big fluffy blanket! Now he is a happy bunny in the evening :)

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Your growing child

26 month old

By now, your child will probably be using about 50 single words, constructing simple two-word sentences and following a two-step command such as "Please get your shoes and bring them to Daddy." Read More

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